posted at 2:01 pm on September 12, 2013 by Allahpundit

Obama had better run it past Putin right away to see how he wants the U.S. to respond.

Syria will fulfil an initiative to hand over its chemical weapons only when the United States stops threatening to strike Syria, RIA news agency quoted President Bashar al-Assad as saying in a television interview…

“When we see the United States really wants stability in our region and stops threatening, striving to attack, and also ceases arms deliveries to terrorists, then we will believe that the necessary processes can be finalized,” he was quoted as saying in an interview with Russian state television.

He said that in an interview with Russian state television, naturally. Putin told reporters on Monday that the White House must withdraw its threat of an attack on Syria as a precondition to launching the big face-saving weapons inspections charade at the UN but, unless I missed it, said nothing about the rebels. Now here’s Assad upping the ante on the same day that U.S. papers are announcing that American weapons shipments to the rebels have begun. There’s no way Obama will agree to it, needless to say. He accepted the UN deal because it preserved more of his credibility than a landslide defeat in Congress would have, but the more Putin humiliates him and the more demands are placed by Russian and Syrian on the U.S. to preemptively neuter its military options, the more O’s credibility calculus will change. At some point here, continuing this pattycake session with the Kremlin and their degenerate client in Syria will cost him more political capital than simply going ahead and bombing will.

That makes me wonder what the angle is to what Assad said here. Obviously he wants to drag out negotiations at the UN, but the U.S. isn’t going to haggle over a demand that they withdraw completely from the battlefield in Syria. If Assad insists on it, negotiations will collapse quickly and then we’re back to the bombing scenario. Maybe this is more of a rhetorical play to get western media to pay extra attention to the rebels and their relationship with the U.S. If Assad can make this a key point of debate at the UN, he can do damage to the White House even if he’s prepared to eventually drop the demand. The media is filled with stories lately about how radical the rebels are: Mike McCaul said just yesterday that at least 50 percent of them are “bad guys” and Mother Jones is out with a piece this morning exploring how lax the controls are among the “moderate” rebels in keeping U.S. aid away from jihadis. Then there’s this, via the Daily Caller, from an expert who spent time with the rebels in Syria:

“The ‘moderate’ force which we are told about supposedly consists of those rebel brigades aligned with the Supreme Military Command, of Major-General Salim Edriss,” he continued. ”Most of the units aligned with the SMC actually come from a 20-unit strong bloc called the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front. This includes some powerful brigades, such as Liwa al-Islam in the Damascus area, Liwa al Farouq and Liwa al Tawhid. These and the overwhelming majority of the units aligned with the SMC are Islamist formations, who adhere to a Muslim Brotherhood-type outlook.”…

“I spent some time with the Tawhid Brigade in Aleppo city at the height of the fighting there,” Spyer said. ” I interviewed one of the leaders of the brigade. I’ve been in the Middle East for a long time and have worked on these issues for a long time. This was an Islamist fighting force, adhering to an Islamist ideology. So even those forces nominally aligned with western supported bodies are themselves overwhelmingly Islamist in outlook (there may be a very small and marginal number of forces who are ostensibly secular, but these are of no military significance). It’s my contention that the real power in the rebellion lies not in the external structures, but among the commanders of the major fighting groups. These men are Islamists.”

Having Russia and Syria make a big stink at the UN about the rebels being “terrorists” who shouldn’t be supplied with arms will spur more coverage like that, which will drive support in the U.S. for intervening in Syria even lower. That doesn’t mean the White House will agree to shut the weapons pipeline to Assad’s enemies — at this point, simple credibility demands that it stay open — but it can make life even tougher for O.

By the way, in some precincts of the Obama-admiring media today, the Russian denouement is being treated as a big win. No foolin’.

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The man was brought in to the square. His eyes were blindfolded. I began shooting pictures, one after the other. It was to be the fourth execution that day I would photograph. I was feeling awful; several times I had been on the verge of throwing up. But I kept it under control because as a journalist I knew I had to document this, as I had the three previous beheadings I had photographed that day, in three other locations outside Aleppo.

The crowd began cheering. Everyone was happy. I knew that if I tried to intervene I would be taken away, and that the executions would go ahead. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to change what was happening and I might put myself in danger.

I saw a scene of utter cruelty: a human being treated in a way that no human being should ever be treated. But it seems to me that in two and a half years, the war has degraded people’s humanity. On this day the people at the execution had no control over their feelings, their desires, their anger. It was impossible to stop them.

I don’t know how old the victim was but he was young. He was forced to his knees. The rebels around him read out his crimes from a sheet of paper. They stood around him. The young man was on his knees on the ground, his hands tied. He seemed frozen.

Two rebels whispered something into his ear and the young man replied in an innocent and sad manner, but I couldn’t understand what he said because I don’t speak Arabic.

At the moment of execution the rebels grasped his throat. The young man put up a struggle. Three or four rebels pinned him down. The man tried to protect his throat with his hands, which were still tied together. He tried to resist but they were stronger than he was and they cut his throat. They raised his head into the air. People waved their guns and cheered. Everyone was happy that the execution had gone ahead.

That scene in Syria, that moment, was like a scene from the Middle Ages, the kind of thing you read about in history books. The war in Syria has reached the point where a person can be mercilessly killed in front of hundreds of people—who enjoy the spectacle.

As a human being I would never have wished to see what I saw. But as a journalist I have a camera and a responsibility. I have a responsibility to share what I saw that day. That’s why I am making this statement and that’s why I took the photographs. I will close this chapter soon and try never to remember it.

And, Obama, Kerry, and McVain are ARMING these people. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

If Obama had any stones at all, he’d admit that he is in way over his head, fire John Kerry, nominate John Bolton as SOS, and as soon as Bolton is confirmed, resign the office of the presidency and get the hell out of town (after telling Joe Biden that as soon as he is sworn in as president, he should do whatever Bolton tells him in regard to Syria).

Putin should not overplay his game, though. The small man can’t be mocked. He’ll stop at nothing to avenge and to show who’s ‘king of the world’. Blood and treasure are none of his concerns. He is clinically NPD’d.

Is it odd that Putin’s NYT article argument against exceptionalism is no different than Obama’s?

Deep down, both Obama and Putin hate the US and all that it has stood for. Putin also seeks to restore Russia to it’s past status and influence – and taking advantage of a naive and incompetent US leader are means to that end. But what helps the process is that Obama’s goal is also to knock the US down a few pegs too.

I think it was Dennis Miller who noted yesterday that Putin wanted Russia and China in the Gold / Silver medal spots on the podium. Obama want’s to cede the Bronze medal spot to anyone else.

At this point the best thing that could happen in the Syria crisis would be for Secretary of State Kerry to resign. He’s one of the logical persons to take the fall for this fiasco, given that we don’t live under a parliamentary system and the constitutional concept in respect of the president, any president, is for the decision to be made by voters once in four years. It was Mr. Kerry who made the blunder that has put the administration on track for a classic appeasement.

What possessed the secretary to suggest Syria be let off the hook after gassing its own people is beyond us. Only a day or so before Mr. Kerry was himself warning against appeasement, though he never sounded like he meant it. His whole public life has been a long arc of retreat. The idea that he could suddenly emerge as a hawk, even in the face of such a crisis as Syria, always seemed chimerical. The proposal to let Syria off the hook in a deal with Russia is just too cynical by half.

No doubt Mr. Kerry’s defenders will suggest that he never meant his idea of disarming Syria to be taken seriously. If that is his defense, the reason for him to resign would be incompetence. For the first time since he was on a Swiftboat, he has an executive, wartime responsibility. It’s not like a senator, where one can — indeed, one is expected to — burble on interminably and with but indirect consequence. He now holds a job in which there isn’t room for blundering.

Another possibility is that Mr. Kerry’s offer to let Syria off the hook wasn’t an unintended, off-hand remark, but a calculated collapse in the face of resistance in Congress to his mini-war-plan. In that case, it would be all too typical of Mr. Kerry. We take no joy in having predicted it in “A Moral Obscenity.” Or, for that matter, in having opposed the elevation of Mr. Kerry to secretary of state in the first place. In any event, if it was a premeditated demarche, resignation would also be in order.

Yet a third possibility is that this is all part of President Obama’s plan. This is the suggestion in an important op-ed piece by Norman Podhoretz, issued over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal under the headline “Obama’s Successful Foreign Policy Failure.” Mr. Podhoretz argues that as a “left-wing radical,” Mr. Obama “believed that the United States had almost always been a retrograde and destructive force in world affairs” and has sought to transform it accordingly

If that’s not true, then Mr. Kerry ought to resign. If it is true, Mr. Kerry ought to resign. For millions of Americans Mr. Kerry’s political career was poisoned at birth by his meeting with America’s wartime enemies while our GIs were appearing in arms in Vietnam. It was poisoned by his libels against his fellow GIs in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he went on to chair. A political reckoning was only a matter of time.

We had hoped that such a reckoning was accomplished in the presidential election of 2004, when the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth rose up and exposed Candidate Kerry as a wartime fraud. But he passed that off as politics and returned to the Senate. It is going to be impossible for him to pass off the current catastrophe so easily. The administration, the country, our allies, our GIs would be better off were Mr. Kerry now to step down and the Senate be given the chance to consent to someone more prepared for the job once held by Jefferson, Madison, and John Quincy Adams.

If Assad insists on it, negotiations will collapse quickly and then we’re back to the bombing scenario.

What “bombing scenario”? Barky wasn’t going to get anything from Congress, regardless of McShame and a bunch of other morons, there. We have no interest in doing anything in Syria that even pauses their killing of each other.

Of course, American interests are best served by impeaching the Indonesian Dog-Eating retard and criminally prosecuting the dirtbag. When Barky is donning an orange jumpsuit, then American interests will be served. Anything less than that … don’t friggin bother.

Putin has established himself as Barry’s Daddy. Obama will bend over as ordered.

Disgraceful – but no more disgraceful than a thousand other acts of this low-life pseudointellectual poseur. The shame is on America: for electing this miscreant, and for insisting that every half-wit with a pulse be registered to vote and turn out.

Time to bring back literacy tests or civics tests to qualify voters. Don’t discriminate, everybody gets the same test. After 40+ years of federal control over public education and nearly three generations of desegregation, what objection could anyone possibly raise?

Eliminate the stupid and uninformed from the electorate, and we’ll never see another Democrat elected.

So the President got what he wanted without having to spend a dime of the military budget, put a single American soldier at risk or risk killing civilians? That plus the intense schadenfreude at conservatives flipping their sh*t over this man’s preternatural luck? I’ll take it.

Putin won nothing… He just told his client Assad just give up the chemical weapons or the Americans will f*** you up beyond recognition and we simply cannot do anything about it… Within four weeks the UN will be in Syria taking away Assad WMD for destruction…

What “bombing scenario”? Barky wasn’t going to get anything from Congress, regardless of McShame and a bunch of other morons, there. We have no interest in doing anything in Syria that even pauses their killing of each other.

Of course, American interests are best served by impeaching the Indonesian Dog-Eating retard and criminally prosecuting the dirtbag. When Barky is donning an orange jumpsuit, then American interests will be served. Anything less than that … don’t friggin bother.

ThePrimordialOrderedPair on September 12, 2013 at 3:24 PM

I don’t know… if Obama really wants to help his buddies in the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda then he will claim this is a reason to bomb without Congressional or UN oversight. As the saying goes, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. And while Obama apparently didn’t know this before this fiasco, he must have certainly learned it after it.

They are featuring a tweet made October 23, 2012 during the Presidential Campaign by the ‘OFA Truth Team’ (Obama For America Truth Team) slamming the Romney campaign….

Romney called for U.S. to arm Syrian rebels without regard to where those weapons might end up.
—
OFA TruthTeam (@OFATruthTeam) October 23, 2012

Flash to today – where the Obama team, including Senator Senile and Ms. Lindsey are insisting on the US continuing to arm / support the Syrian rebels…as well as undertaking military strikes against Assad that will assist the rebels.

One thing that we can note about the American left today – their consistent hypocrisy.

Assad is accused of violating a treaty neither he nor his government ever signed.

The United States, a country which maintains diplomatic relations with Syria, is arming rebels to overthrow that country.

The United States demands that minorities and all religions be protected.

The nation which is attempting to protect minorities, and has incorporated them into its government for generations, is Assad’s Syria.

The groups that are already executing, torturing and trying to eradicate minorities and all religions other than Islam are the rebels, whom we are arming, who are against Assad’s Syria.

We are backing Islamists rebels and against Assad’s Syria?

The Russians wants to protect Assad’s Syria and try to curb or extirpate Islamist jihad in the region.

Iran wants to protect Assad…but wants to encourage Islamist jihad in the region.

We are anti-Russia and anti-Assad.

We are pro-rebels….and be extension, pro-Iran.

Iran hates us.

We hate Iran.

But we are the humanitarian nation…always on the side of goodness and decency.

Russia is pro-totalitarian state…you know, a bunch of commies and stuff.

The United States is largely totalitarian today…you know, a bunch of commies and stuff…taxes, EPA rules, DHS running amuck, DoJ’s selective “justice,” O’care, mandates from the White House that circumvent Congress…

Russia is less totalitarian…approaching a libertarian state…running toward free capitalism.

We are clamoring for military action, still…because, you know…we are.

Russia is trying to avoid any military action. Get this thing off the front burner before it boils over…

I don’t mean this to be as catty as it is going to sound but is Sec. Kerry okay? His face looks kinda puffy.

Cindy Munford on September 12, 2013 at 3:23 PM

It’s the new look–The Mortician Makeover!

txhsmom on September 12, 2013 at 3:39 PM

Steroids can and they do puff-up the face — remember how Jerry Lewis looked (hugely puffy face) when he was taking steroids, I think it was along with chemo., which if folks may remember, Kerry was being treated with, too (Chemo). Maybe he still is but with added, or more, steroids.

All I know is prednisone (steroid) has that effect on the face if it’s taken long enough and at high enough dosage.

Imo, the term “rebels” appears to indicate the opposition to Assad & his government. It’s also a term McCain and others use to cause people to think these are the “good” guys.

Al Qaeda, Islamists and the various groups killing everyone that won’t convert to the Muslim “religion” are not “rebels”. They are our enemy and everyone elses enemy that don’t want ruled by these barbarians. These should be identified as terrorists.

To answer your question above, I would have to say the good guys are the lesser of two evils and the bad guys are the more evil. Why are we not the good guys in Syria? Because we are funding and supporting the more evil side.

These poor sad sacks o’crap sure have no idea of what they have just gotten themselves into. It is getting to the point where I don’t think anyone in this Administration has ever played a game of poker… heck they are at tiddlywinks level as far as Putin and Assad are concerned.

Having ALL your leadership and institutions suborned and co opted by Sunni oil tic money will do that to you. Americans have been anesthetized by money from planet Saudi since back in the day. You are working for Islam and Allah these days. It isn’t unreasonable to ask why or scream WTF? But it isn’t likely to change while Saudi Princes can write cheques and power folks can cash them.

Because its called “democratization” in our speak. We helped to establish “democracy” in ’80s Afghanistan, ergo Bin Laden, our bestest friend, ergo radical islam. We then recently helpded establish “democracy” in Libya and Egypt, same great results there, radical islam. And now Syria, on its way to radical islam with our help.

We help and build up our worst enemies. Its in our blood.

Why anyone insists we should be helping Al Qaeda, which WE ARE doing right now, is beyond comprehension. All this talk about Putin this and Putin that is ridiculous, he is the only party here, save for Assad, fighting RADICAL ISLAM while we do all we can to arm our worst enemies. Between the two fighting parties here I’ll gladly take Assad any time of the day, Al Qaeda is far, FAR worse for the ENTIRE PLANET. How quickly we forgot 9/11, its wasn’t Assad who attacked us, but Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda, our 2 bestest friends right now…

Stevens died to cover tracks of arming radical islamists in Syria. How quickly we forgot that as well… Killary laughing each and every moment this is continuing.

So, Putin puts Hussein in his place and makes him look like what he is, a piece of crap mental midget. While Boehner, after 5 years, has not done even one proper thing THE LAW AFFORDS HIM, and here were are, attacking Putin of all people. Wow, just wow…

I’m guessing quite awhile ago. Of course, the move would only be made if Comrade O made certain moves. Which he did.

Putin is playing chess and Comrade O is clueless. Plus, Comrade O apparently has no advisers who know what the hell is going on. JF’n K is way over his head. And, it seems, so are all of Dear Leader’s other stooges.

The worst part is that Putin is only about a C- at PD, Assad about the same. Ronald Reagan would have tied them together, made a basketball out of them and started doing free-throws. He knew how to deal with thugs via PD and it scared the crap out of the old USSR. Since then we really haven’t had a President good at it.

Obama is a FAIL at PD.

Putin and Assad has his number and Kerry’s, and they also would do a number on Hillary. Without morals, standing by them and making policy to suit, you lose at PD. Putin is just a conniving thug, and Assad a brutal dictator, yet they still know how to do PD and are about to hand out free lessons to Barack Obama who cannot speak without a teleprompter, cannot think on his feet, cannot respond appropriately in this venue. The Left doesn’t know what is about to hit them, but it will not be pretty as they have NO ONE who knows warm spit about Public Diplomacy. And Obama, no matter how hard he tries to redirect the conversation will be unable to do so as Putin is not a nice man and doesn’t play ball, and you can’t call him a racist and expect it to have any effect at all. And that is it for the modern Left’s playbook.

Just checked out some images from Drudge of rebel forces decapitating some dude. Someone remind me again why in the blue fuq do we care about helping these animals? Is sawing off someone’s head less humane than Sarin or Vx?

The only way we should go in there is if we just incinerate the whole fuqing country from the sky and ask the pope for forgiveness for the Copts.

So the President got what he wanted without having to spend a dime of the military budget, put a single American soldier at risk or risk killing civilians? That plus the intense schadenfreude at conservatives flipping their sh*t over this man’s preternatural luck? I’ll take it.

libfreeordie on September 10, 2013 at 5:59 PM

rogerb on September 12, 2013 at 3:27 PM

The out-of-touch with reality troll stepped right into that one. Of course, its Dear Leader did, too.

Having ALL your leadership and institutions suborned and co opted by Sunni oil tic money will do that to you. Americans have been anesthetized by money from planet Saudi since back in the day. You are working for Islam and Allah these days. It isn’t unreasonable to ask why or scream WTF? But it isn’t likely to change while Saudi Princes can write cheques and power folks can cash them.

BL@KBIRD on September 12, 2013 at 6:21 PM

The Saudis aren’t the only foreign shareholders in America, Inc. Don’t forget that Israel is down with all this as well as obviously powerful interests in Germany, France, Britain and elsewhere.

That doesn’t mean the White House will agree to shut the weapons pipeline to Assad’s enemies — at this point, simple credibility demands that it stay open — but it can make life even tougher for O.

Why is it credible to supply weapons to a rebellion led by Islamists? Since when are they freedom fighters? They just want to remove Assad and replace his tyranny with theirs. They are in fact worse than Assad.

and John Gaffetastic Kerry and O’Bumbler are helpless …. a case could even be made that Biden could not have done any worse than John Kerry wrt this debacle

Obama’s Pals in AL QAEDA I mean The Muslim Brotherhood , I mean the **moderate** rebels, especially like to behead Christians, including 40 day old christian babies … and also they are partial to dismembering young Syrian christian girls, *while still alive* …. not to mention that whole chowing down on warm newly ripped out enemy hearts from ‘live’ enemy bodies …

I really don’t think America should be ALLYING herself with such ‘demonic’ ‘creatures’ … do you?

That doesn’t mean the White House will agree to shut the weapons pipeline to Assad’s enemies — at this point, simple credibility demands that it stay open —

With all due respect, what did you say? Credibility for whom, exactly?

You just provided a post identifying the terrorists and jihadists which comprise Assad’s enemies, then you suggest we need to arm our own enemies nonetheless? I don’t care which sects of Islam are involved – all Islamists are our enemies.

What has happened to my country when our President and his stooges are committing treason right and left, and virtually all media pretends it’s not happening and our enemies really aren’t our enemies. Because, you know, they pay our leaders so very well. This is the height of dhimmitude; our enemies are ‘employing’ us to fight for, fund and arm their own jihad!! American Ambassadors and others are so much fodder: “what difference does it make”?

The American people aren’t stupid.

Enough obfuscation and covering for the bad guys, please. In this case they happen to be our own government.

The president’s got a challenge worthy of his talents. Villanous characters like Putin and Assad are nothing so out of the ordinary, but handling these cretins while battling in his own country a divided right that can only agree on one thing, his inadequacy, and a left that is entirely disenchanted he isn’t either more or less like GW, he must be itching to get this mess off of his plate by doing something irrevocable. That he hasn’t responded this way thus far is more than the world could ever have hoped for or expected. Like another great leader from Illinois, when President Obama’s patience is at last exhausted his fury will be a thing to behold.

It think Obama is a measure of gullibility.
If you always knew Obama was an idiot, you are very smart.
If the longer you think Obama is smart the more gullible you are.
If you made it to the Syrian disaster to realize he is an imbecile, you are in sad shape.
If you are like the person quoted above, there is no hope for you in life, you will forever be led around by the nose and you will drink the poison-laced Kool-Aid happily.

With obama illegally arming and funding the Al-Qaeda terrorist “rebels”, why should Assad agree to anything?

Obviously, obama is desperate to launch an unprovoked attack on Syrian, and the only way that he can “justify” doing this is if Al-Qaeda launches ANOTHER chemical attack, which obama will AGAIN blame on Assad – So, what better way to make this happen than for obama to fund and arm these terrorists? EVERYONE knows what obama is up to – Assad is no dummy.